No. 63.] 221 



AGRICULTURE OF INDIANA. 



BY SOLON ROBINSONj LAKE COURT HOUSE. 



Whether I can make an article worthy of a place in your next 

 volume of the " Transactions," I am not certain. But " I'll try" to 

 answer the third inquiry as applicable to my own vicinity, the north 

 western part of Indiana. I must first give you an idea of the " promi- 

 nent features" of the country. 



This is the prairie region. The word prairie is French. The ge- 

 neral impression, at least in the eastern States, is, that it means 

 meadow; and that meadow means " level, wet, grass land." This 

 impression is wrong; prairie means a country bare of trees; and in 

 my opinion, it is the natural state of the land as left when the " great 

 waters" receded from it. For instance, if the Falls of Niagara were 

 swejit away, the bed of Lake Erie would be a prairie. In time it 

 would grass over — the timber would encroach upon the edges — the 

 seeds of some trees would be wafted by the wind to the center, and 

 others carried by animals, and by and by groves would springr up 

 here and there, dotting the sea of grass like islands in the sea of 

 water. 



None will suppose the bottom of the lake level, neither are the 

 prairies; they are as commonly undulating as any other land; neither 

 are they generally wet. In this particular, the soil varies as much 

 as it does in any part of the State of New-York. That is, from the 

 extreme of deep morass, covered with a growth of coarse grass and 

 weeds, twelve or fifteen feet high, to the gravelly or sandy barren 

 knoll — and here the word " barren," suggests an idea. 



Large tracts of land in the prairie region are covered with a 

 growth of scattering timber, void of undergrowth, and frequently 

 not unlike an orchard or artificial park, the ground covered with 

 grass; and these tracts are called " harrens-j''' but why so called, 

 when the soil is of the best quality, I cannot explain. 



Between the above extremes of quality of prairie land, there is of 

 course almost every variety of soil suited to the wants of the hus- 

 bandman. There is one universal characteristic — that is a deep, 

 strong, grass sod, and a mellow, loose, black vegetable mold. 

 This has a depth varying from five inches to five feet, and a substra- 

 tum varying from loose sand and gravel, of unknown depth, to that 

 of the stifFest yellowish clay, slightly mixed with slate and sand 

 gravel, or rather scales, and some few of lime, which is of uniform 

 compactness after leaving the surface four or five feet, and requires 

 to be dug up with a mattock. This bed of clay uniformly rests upon 

 beach sand or gravel; it varies in thickness from one to sixty feet; 

 such is the character of the greatest portion of prairie land. This 

 clay land being almost impervious to water, requires deep plowing 

 and surface draining, and will then grow wheat with tlie least labor 

 or cost of any other land in the world. 



Of course the same description of land will produce all the other 



